Day 44 Saturday 8 July 2017

We arrive back in Vancouver this morning to beautiful sunshine again.  It will be a relief to be on the plane to return home. 

We did a Cook’s Tour of the museums of Vancouver.  We visited their Maritime Museum, The Space Museum and their main Vancouver Museum.  It wasn’t cheap but by taking a three museum ticket it was about $48 each from memory.  

 The interior is of this boat, it wasn't our room.

It was a full day and it was a great way of filling in the day.  I still can’t believe that it is sunny.  When we weren’t out galavanting around, Scenic had given us a group room in the hotel with Wi-Fi, they took care of our luggage and the transfer to the airport.  They drove us through some ritzy areas of Vancouver and it suffer the same problem as parts of Australia with high prices driven up by overseas demand.

Day 43 Friday 7 July 2017

Returning through the Inside Passage.  The whole trip has been remarkably calm on the water– thank goodness I took those sea sickness tablets!  We have been so blessed with the weather.  I was expecting one-third of the days to be wet and we had 3 wet days out of 22.  Tonight we had our final dinner and it was lovely.

Day 42 Thursday 6 July 2017

Today we arrive in the salmon capital of Ketchikan. It also seems to be the seaplane capital as well and they quite close to the ship.

Not sure if this sign is meant to make us feel safer.

The town has a history of gold mining. 

We did the historical walk to Creek Street. 

This is where the working girls worked in the past, a salmon run help the fish go above the falls. The sign says it all.  One of our group saw the salmon running where they were but it was too soon for this watercourse.

Next was the Tongass Museum which highlighted the culture and art of the local Haida and Tlingit tribes.  

After an interesting free shuttle ride we went to the Heritage Centre where they have preserved totem poles.  We learnt a lot including that they could be mortuary poles as well as record their history. To understand or interpret them you must hear the oral stories as well.

Day 41 Wednesday 5 July 2017

This means we arrived in Abu Dhabi safely, I now take the opportunity to finish our last trip.

Today we visited Glacier Bay.  We saw about 4 glaciers in total but the highlight is Margerie Glacier.  After lunch we saw a Park ranger’s talk and an incredibly powerful presentation by a Tlingit woman.  We did see otters sunbathing and that was wonderful. They looked big considering he distance from the back of the ship

Day 40 Tuesday 4 July 2017

We arrive in Skagway which was established in 1897 as part of the Klondike gold rush. The buildings are well preserved and the little township has a lot of atmosphere.  We are here as part of the 4 July celebrations.  Their street parade was excellent for a little place.  Lots of floats, vintage cars, except the one that did break down during the parade.  They were throwing lollies at the kids although a woman near us was thrown a T-shirt (she was probably a local).  We did a history walk and photographed some really interesting buildings and plaques where gunfights occurred and we finished up at the visitor centre, where we watched a really interesting gold rush documentary.

My favourite one was for the karaoke group whose mission statement was “Making Karaoke Great Again”.

We returned to the ship at 12.30 PM and just as many people were leaving the ship as getting on.  We had a fabulous lunch on deck of Pizza and hot chocolate.  One of the best pizzas I have eaten and it was a winning recipe from 2015.  Fabulous!!  Antonia would have been impressed – no pineapple. Although I must ask why we were having the 2015 winner and not the 2016 winner.

Day 39 Monday 3 July

This morning we arrived in Juneau which is the capital of Alaska. A population of 35000 and we added a third of the population with four cruise ships in town. From our veranda we took photos of a Bald Eagle and we saw a Golden Eagle but it was too far away for a photo opportunity.

We visited the Alaskan State Museum which helped us escape the rain and the museum was very good. They covered all history of Alaska. The traditional cultures of Athabascan, Alutiiq and Unangan.

From here we took the Mount Roberts Tramway for the view and the chance to see all the Bald Eagles – there was a chance…but it was a fat chance.  Thank goodness we saw the other Bald Eagle earlier otherwise it would have been very disappointing.

Heavily overcast and raining it made the view from the top difficult but it wasn’t too bad.  At the top they had a rehabilitated Bald Eagle, Lady Baltimore but we didn’t see any others. We watched a video on Alaska and there was a musical presentation from an excellent family group who perform their music against a backdrop of wonderful landscape and animal photography of the Alaskan area. An Alaskan version of the Von Trapp family.  The mother in travelling to Australia had been bitten by a kangaroo.

As our ship was leaving at 10.30 PM they had the 4 July fireworks that were pretty but rather underwhelming but they did their best and they had them in several positions so people could see them.

Day 39 Sunday 2 July 2017

A cruising day with a special lunch pairing of wine with courses of food.  I should have had three glasses of wine with my three courses but because Elizabeth doesn’t drink wine I wound up with 5.  I didn’t remember too much and spent most of the afternoon asleep - it was my bear hibernation impersonation. I think…I had a good time – a really good time.